Bandit country has lost enthusiasm for peace
**Via News Hound
Dearbhail McDonald
July 31, 2005
THE ink was barely dry on last week’s IRA statement when a group of army engineers flew in to dismantle the super Sanger lookout post that has blighted the South Armagh enclave of Newtownhamilton for almost 30 years.
Local residents, who had heard the army had moved in at 9am on Friday morning to dismantle the nearby hilltop observation tower at Sugarloaf mountain in Camlough, gathered in disbelief to see for themselves whether the infamous observation post was finally coming down.
Increased security — paratroopers patrolling the streets and helicopters flying overhead — failed to raise expectations that the towering concrete and corrugated tin structure that forces residents to take a two-mile detour around the town would be torn down.
“It is just like any other day,” said Noelle McGarvey, a mother of three from the village and a local SDLP councillor. “Don’t be fooled by the paras on the streets or the drone of the helicopters. That means nothing, they’re always here. Newtown is an army barracks with a village surrounding it, instead of a village that has a police station.”
Thursday’s IRA statement, the fruit of six months of unrelenting pressure on Sinn Fein, called an end to the war and was billed by the republican party as a momentous document. But even locals in the IRA’s south Armagh heartland, ground down by years of peace-process tedium, struggled to respond with appropriate fervour.
“We’ve been living under a cloud of oppression for so long,” said Frances Caherty, a member of the local development committee. “I’m trying to get excited about the IRA statement, I haven’t heard it in full yet, but it has reached a point where total apathy has set in. People still resent the army presence here, but there’s nothing you can do. You just get on with it.
“You couldn’t compare the IRA statement to the Good Friday agreement, you can’t even think about it in that way. But, hopefully it is a small step towards returning our lives to some semblance of normality.”
In the Central bar, punters were equally unfazed. “Aye, I suppose it’s great. Everyone keeps telling us that it is, but it’s about 11 years too late,” said Patrick Haughey from Cullyhanna. “The problem in Northern Ireland was never politics. It was sectarianism and it still is. I suppose it is historical because we can try and move from war to peace and Catholics will get to have their say, because up until now they’ve been ignored.”
Publican Neil Gildernew, who owns the Central, said locals had more important issues, such as policing, criminality and inward investment, to discuss.
“Nobody is even talking about it,” said the cousin of Michelle Gildernew, the Sinn Fein MEP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. “In fact, the only people getting excited about it are the media. I think it is an historic statement; at least I hope it is. I’m trying my best to be optimistic.
“Newtownhamilton is the town the world has forgotten. People don’t realise it’s still under siege by the soldiers. I’ve been burgled three times in recent weeks, and I’ve given up on the police catching the hooligans. Who is policing this area? The paras, the police or paramilitaries?” In nearby Crossmaglen, therepublican capital of “bandit country”, close to the home Thomas “Slab” Murphy, chief of staff of the IRA, the presence of the British Army was of primary concern.
“We’ll be the last to go, we’re not too optimistic about any major changes in Cross,” said Neil Comiskey, 23, a regular at Shorts bar. “I want the soldiers off the streets and the troops out for good. Then I want proper jobs and opportunities for young people like me. We have nothing to do all day except hang around the streets”.
“The IRA statement is just a bunch of words and it means nothing to people in Crossmaglen,” said Aidan Short, son of the late publican Paddy Short. “There were more celebrations in 1994. There was a cataclysmic shift in people’s minds back then. Locals have faith in the sincerity of the statement, but it’s not historic. The momentum has gone and people here have just got on with their lives.
“We are still living under watchtowers, we are still cut off and living in a cocoon. Nobody will trade here because they think it is unsafe.”
Most locals seemed happy to turn a blind eye to the IRA’s criminal enterprise, the subject of much criticism from the Irish government. “Diesel laundering, smuggling, all the craic is not criminality, it’s a way of life,” said one local. “We don’t connect that activity, the way that some people like Michael McDowell do, with criminality and paramilitary activity. It’s not all going to fund bloody IRA weapons, everyone does it. They’re just trading, and evading tax while they’re at it. That’s normal, that’s Crossmaglen, it’s not criminality. The IRA statement won’t change that. People are doing well out of it too.”
In Camlough, home of Raymond McCreesh, the republican hunger striker and Conor Murphy, the rising star of Sinn Fein, reactions to demilitarisation were mixed. “I’m delighted to see it go,” said Barry Doherty, who has lived in the shadow of the army base in Camlough. “But it should have come down a long time ago.”
Surprisingly, in this republican heartland, nobody openly called for a return to violence although not everyone was happy with the decision to dump IRA arms. “You would just want to be careful about who you talk to about the IRA,” cautioned one local. “A lot of people aren’t as happy with it as they seem.”
